Gigli (2003)

(In theaters, August 2003) While the trailers are trying to sell you this movie as a romantic comedy and the critics are trying to tell you this is the most wretched thing in ages, the truth lies somewhere in between. It’s a low-octane crime “comedy” in which a dumb thug and a lesbian hit-woman fall in love while they sequester a mentally retarded young man. For most of the film, it’s just a dull piece of dull cinema, hampered by a bad script, no visible sense of humour and two leads who do nothing to deserve our sympathy. Only during the last half-hour does the film truly turn offensive, milking every second of its turgid conclusion like it was pure gold rather than the torture it evolves into. Two gory scenes played for laughs do nothing to focus this scattered miscalculation, through stereotypical cameos by actors such as Christopher Walken and Al Pacino offer some balm for our pain and suffering. There have been more obnoxious movies that Gigli this summer (Legally Blonde 2 springs to mind), but few that manage to reach such a level of uselessness. Jennifer Lopez tries too hard to be sexy (and, amusingly enough, fails for the first time in many movies) while Ben Affleck offers no particular depth to his obtuse character. The real villain, though, is writer/director Martin Brest, who delivers a film that has all the sexual sophistication of its retarded character. Don’t stay for the credits; just when you think the movie can’t hurt you any more, it reprises the vomit-inducing retarded acapella version of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby got Back”. After that, one can almost wish for a painful death for everyone associated with the production.